Yu-Gi-Oh Summer Love
by Trillian75
Summary: One year after the Ceremonial Battle, Yugi Mutou has finally worked up the courage to ask Anzu to be his girlfriend. Will the return of the Millennium Puzzle and the discovery of another Egyptian artifact thwart his plans? Peachshipping (Yugi x Anzu), Puzzleshipping (Yugi x Yami Yugi), Spiritshipping (Yugi x Anzu x Yami Yugi)


**Author's Note: **This is my first fanfic, so be gentle :). I have recently gotten back into the Yu-Gi-Oh fandom by way of Little Kuriboh's Abridged Series, so that accounts for the slightly irreverent tone I take here in this story. This started out as some of my own musings as to what happens to the characters after the end of Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters, and it morphed into having a storyline, so I've been encouraged to post it here. I have several chapters already written, with more to come. I will post chapter 2 next Sunday...sooner if I get a lot of good feedback :)

I mostly have used Japanese names, as I am currently rewatching the series through fansubs. You may see a few exceptions...hopefully they make sense.

**Chapter 1: A Summer Mirage**

It was a languidly hot July afternoon in Domino City. Yugi Mutou slowly paced the aisles of the Kame Game Shop, pausing every once in a while to straighten out a box that was a millimeter out of place. Hardly anyone had visited the shop that day. It was a day to spend poolside, not to play card games. If it were up to Yugi, he would have closed up the shop for the day and headed for the beach. But if Grandpa found out…

_How's Grandpa going to find out?_ thought Yugi. He's all the way over in Egypt again, trying to dig up more ancient artifacts. He heard rumors of an eighth Millennium Item being out there somewhere. But Yugi was dubious. "If there were another Millennium Item, wouldn't Yami have needed that to get back to the afterlife?" he had asked the old man. Grandpa muttered something about "kids these days… get off my lawn!"

_Yami._ Oh yeah, his name was actually Atem, but Yugi had known him by that name for about five minutes before he walked out of his life and into the afterlife about a year ago, so it didn't exactly trip off the tongue. Yami had been the best friend a boy could have, someone who was attached to an ancient Egyptian artifact, lived inside his head, and who took over his body when needed to kick ass and play card games. _If I still had the Millennium Puzzle, at least I'd have him to talk to right now inside my head_, thought Yugi. _Hmm… surprised my "imaginary friend" didn't get me locked up in a mental ward somewhere._ Yugi smirked to himself. _Really surprised no one ever locked up Bakura!_

_Speaking of locking up… fuck it, I'm going to the beach! I'm going to call up Anzu and make it a date. Mmmm… maybe she'll wear a bikini. Anzu in a bikini… Oh, with my luck, she'll want to spend the entire date in the arcade playing Dance Dance Revolution. Oh well, even that would be a hundred times better than being locked up in here. Do you remember your date with Anzu, mou hitori no boku?… Oh, man, I'm talking to myself again. Maybe I should be locked up after all. _

"Yugi!" scolded Anzu in hushed tones on the phone, "you shouldn't be calling me! You know I'm pulling a double-shift at Burger World today! Besides, I thought you had to work in your grandpa's shop today."

"Yeah, well, I thought I'd close up early. Life's too short to sit around inside and play games on a hot, sunny day like today."

"You feeling OK, Yugi?"

"Perfectly fine. When do you get off work?"

"Ten-thirty. Crap, my boss, gotta go!" Anzu hissed. The line went dead.

Yugi's dreams of seeing Anzu in revealing swimwear were dashed for another day. _Will I be a virgin forever, Yami? Shit, I'm talking to people who no longer exist again. They really are going to take me away!_

Just then, two customers came in, a young father with his son in tow. The boy appeared to be about six years old, and had thick brown hair in a bowl cut that spread around his head. The hair combined with the kid's large hazel eyes reminded Yugi of one of the monsters in his deck, Kuriboh.

"Welcome to Kame Game Shop. How may I help you?" Yugi asked the father.

"We're interested in Duel Monsters cards. Young Judai over there is just crazy about the game. Draws pictures of the monsters and everything. He's pretty talented, even though he can barely read the cards. He's beat his old man a time or two!" the man beamed.

"Oh, really?" Yugi brightened. He watched Judai as he pawed through the booster packs. "You know, my friend Seto Kaiba is starting up a Duel Academy to train up young duelists. Judai might be interested in going there when he gets older."

"You're friends with Seto Kaiba? The multibillionaire head of Kaiba Corporation? That Seto Kaiba?"

Yugi winced a little. His namedropping had been unintentional. "Well, yeah, I try to be. Actually, Kaiba was in my class in high school. We've had a few duels together over the years, too." _And I've saved his life and saved his brother from multiple kidnappings and we're actually the reincarnated spirits of a pharaoh and his trusted high priest. Yeah, Kaiba and I go way back. Way, way back._

A glimmer of recognition spread across the man's face. "I thought you looked familiar! You're Yugi Moto, aren't you?"

"Mutou, actually." _Why do people mess that up all the time?_

"I can't believe I'm meeting the reigning King of Games!" The man held out his hand and Yugi shook it. A look of contemplation crossed the man's face. "You know, you're shorter than I thought you'd be."

"I get that a lot," said Yugi without smiling.

"Judai!" the man called to his son. "Look over here! This is Yugi Moto. He's the King of Games!"

Judai looked up from the cards he was pawing through at Yugi's face. The young boy had a rather blank expression on his face, as if he wasn't quite sure what a "King of Games" was or why it would be important to him.

"Judai! If you're going to be a great duelist, you're going to have to kick this guy's ass someday!" Judai's father let out a hearty laugh at this.

Suddenly, Yugi had a flashback to something that had happened to him a couple of years ago. It was back when Yami was still around. He had been walking to school in Domino City one morning, carrying his Duel Disk and his Millennium Puzzle as usual, when a boy about his age who he did not recognize challenged him to a duel. He remembered the boy's Duel Disk looked rather strange, like a different model Yugi was not familiar with. The boy was wearing a red school uniform, but Yugi had not recognized it from any of the schools in the area. And the duelist's bushy brown hair stood out from the sides of his head like the fur on a Kuriboh… wait a minute. That duelist looked a lot like the little boy who was right there in his game shop, only about ten years older. But how could that be? Who had won that duel, anyway? Yugi tried, but he could not remember. Must be because Yami had taken over by the end of the duel. Usually, though, he could remember what Yami had done, but not this time. Weird. Not the strangest thing that had ever happened to Yugi by a long shot, but still…

Yugi snapped back to reality when Judai came up to the counter with a Duel Monsters booster pack. "I want this one, Daddy! It told me to take it home with me!"

Judai's dad laughed. "It did, huh? Well, then, I guess we'll have to listen." The man smiled at his son and handed Yugi the money for the booster pack.

Yugi handed back the change. "Well, good luck to you, Judai," he said to the boy.

"Can I open it now?" squealed the boy. "Please, please, please, please, please?"

The boy's father looked at Yugi. Yugi said, "Well, you've paid for it. I don't see why not."

Judai tore into the booster pack as fast as his little hands could manage. He spread the cards out in both hands, thumbing through them hungrily. "Oh! Pretty!" he squealed in glee.

Judai's father looked over his son's shoulder at the cards. "Let's see what you've got there, Judai." He took the cards from the boy and flipped through them one by one as Judai jumped up and down, trying his hardest to see the cards as his dad paged through them. He reached the last one and paused. "Yubel. I don't think I've ever seen that one before." Judai pawed at his father's leg, begging to see the card.

Yugi leaned over from behind the counter to see the card. "Yubel. That's an ultra-rare card. Judai, you're a lucky kid! I've played a lot of Duel Monsters, and I've never seen a Yubel in person!" Yugi pondered the image on the card. The monster depicted looked like a woman with dark gray skin, one red eye and one green eye, a yellow diamond on her forehead with a red ring inside it, and lots of bushy hair. One half of her hair was white, and the other half dark gray. The hair, in particular, reminded Yugi of his old friend Bakura. No, not Ryou Bakura the shy, sensitive teenager… this reminded Yugi of Bakura's darker half, the spirit that had once lived in the Millennium Ring and who would take over Ryou Bakura's body and make him do all those terrible things. Yugi shuddered at the thought. Why was he getting an evil vibe from a Duel Monsters card?

"Well, here you go, Judai. Take good care of this card—it's very valuable," Judai's father said as he handed the card to his son.

The child looked intensely at the card in his hand. "Yubel, you're so beautiful! I love you!"

Yugi smiled. He watched the man and his son walk out of the game shop, the boy not once taking his eyes off Yubel. _Cute… but a bit creepy._

Finally, it was eight o'clock and closing time. _What a long day_, thought Yugi. The weather was still quite warm and the sun was still shining. _Well_, thought Yugi, _I'll take a shower and then head towards Burger World to grab a bite to eat. I could still take Anzu to the arcade tonight._

Yugi headed upstairs to his apartment above the game shop. It had been rather lonely for Yugi once his grandfather left for Egypt. His mother still technically lived in the apartment as well, but she was spending more and more time with her new boyfriend and would be gone for weeks at a time now. Technically, his mom and dad were still married to each other, but his father had been on a years-long stay in the United States as part of his job and Yugi hardly ever saw him. _I guess you can only be alone for so long_, thought Yugi. He thought about how things had changed since Yami left and since high school ended last March. "_Kareteku nakama wo mita." _A snippet from an old anime theme song suddenly came to his brain. It meant, "Seeing the gradually lessening friends." _Man, I haven't been this depressed since Yami left. Maybe I haven't been this depressed since before I discovered Yami in the puzzle in the first place._

In the bathroom, Yugi took off his shirt and stood in front of the mirror. He studied himself in the reflection. He had certainly been a late bloomer in high school, but he was finally catching up to his peers in development. He was almost as tall as Anzu now, and increasingly muscular. He had been spending some of his free time working out with a set of weights he had bought at a garage sale and exercises he found on the Internet. He still had a bit of a baby panda look to his face, though, with his big round innocent eyes and chubby cheeks. He furrowed his brow and smoothed his hand against his chin. That was better. He looked more like Yami when he did that.

_Aibou, you are getting more and more handsome every day. Almost as handsome as me!_

That voice! Yugi heard it inside his head, but it was not his own. It sounded like the Pharaoh's, from back in the days when the spirit and he had shared one body through the magic of the Millennium Puzzle. But how could this be? The Millennium Puzzle was long destroyed, and the Pharaoh Atem had long been returned to his rightful place in the ancient Egyptian afterlife. He had not heard the Pharaoh's voice like that inside his head ever since that fateful day.

"Spirit! Yami! Atem! Is that you?" Yugi shouted out loud to his reflection in the mirror. "Where are you?"

There was no reply.

_Shit, I really am actually going crazy,_ thought Yugi. _Now I am hearing voices. Doesn't schizophrenia often start in your late teens or twenties? What the hell is going on?_

Yugi got in the shower and let the hot water rush over him. He thought more about the voice, and about what it might mean. _Don't Christians believe that the spirits of the dead watch over you from Heaven? Yami is dead. He is in the Egyptian form of Heaven. Perhaps he can watch over me?_ The thought excited Yugi. Then he was suddenly embarrassed. What if Yami was watching him right now from Heaven… naked in the shower? He suddenly felt very exposed and vulnerable.

_Do Christians really believe that Heaven is full of peeping Toms who watch everything you do? Sex, showering, picking your nose, everything?_ Yugi blushed. How many times had Yami seen him masturbate, then? They had come to an understanding back in the days when they shared a body. Yami would stay in his soul room back when Yugi would need some "private time". But that was then.

_I think Anzu is a Christian_, thought Yugi. _I know that I've seen her wear a crucifix, anyway. Maybe she can tell me what's going on! I'll have to try to talk to her about it when I see her tonight!_


End file.
